☄️ High-Output Decision Making - Decision Fatigue (1/3)

Life is nothing but a series of decisions.

The company you're building, your current role, your city, your relationships, even the neighborhood where you live. Every one of these started with a choice.

The quality of your decisions determines the trajectory of your life more than anything else.

Yet most people ignore decision-making as a critical skill they can improve. They unknowingly waste their best mental energy on small choices, clogging up the mental bandwidth that is needed for clear thinking and making good decisions.

Every decision you make, from critical strategic bets to trivial daily choices (what to wear, eat, etc.), draws from the same limited mental reservoir.

If you don’t use it carefully, you'll quickly drain your decision-making capacity, leading to poor judgment when it matters most.

High-output leaders are essentially decision-making machines. But there's a biological limit to this capacity that we can't simply power through.

The Real Cost Of Decision Fatigue

Decision fatigue is the deterioration of decision quality after making many consecutive choices.

A fascinating study of parole judges reveals this in action:

• At the start of the day or after a break: judges granted parole 70% of the time

• Late in the day, when mentally fatigued: grant rates dropped to less than 10%

The same judges, same cases - dramatically different outcomes based solely on decision fatigue.

Smart people build systems to deal with decision fatigue. They start by addressing minor daily decisions and their mindset about decisions.

How Top Leaders Think About Decisions

Obama wore only blue or gray suits to eliminate unnecessary daily decisions. Zuckerberg (prior to cool Zuck) wore identical gray t-shirts every day.

Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter and Square, structures his weeks thematically – Mondays for management, Tuesdays for product, and so on.

These are not quirks of outlier leaders, but actual systems that work well to combat everyday decision fatigue.

Jeff Bezos once said that he only expects himself to make three good decisions a day, and that too before lunch. He also famously splits decisions into two categories:

• Type 1: Irreversible, high-impact decisions (one-way doors): These deserve deep, intentional thinking during your peak mental hours.

• Type 2: Reversible, lower-impact decisions (two-way doors): Make these quickly, delegate them, or automate them entirely.

Bezos also advocates making decisions once you have about 70% of the information you need. Waiting for 100% certainty means moving far too slowly in today's world.

Your Judgment = Your Highest Leverage Asset

Even sharp decision-makers get sloppy on decision fatigue.

Warren Buffett intentionally limits his decision-making intensity by making just a few critical investment decisions each year.

The rest of his schedule is reading and thinking. In his words:

This approach has created one of the greatest investment track records in history.

Protect Your Decision-Making Power

The 80/20 rule applies perfectly here: roughly 20% of your decisions create 80% of your results.

Ruthlessly protect your mental bandwidth for these high-leverage decisions by:

1. Creating “default choices” for low-impact decisions

2. Scheduling important decisions during your peak mental hours

3. Delegating or automating non-critical decisions

Studies suggest it’s best for most people to front-load critical decisions to morning hours when their thinking is clearest.

Your daily decision-making capacity is finite, and treating it as unlimited leads to poor choices and outcomes.

High-output leaders relentlessly protect their mental bandwidth by delegating or automating low-impact decisions.

Examples of low-stakes decisions to delegate/automate:

• Initial vendor screening

• Scheduling and calendar management

• Budget approvals under established thresholds

• Data collection and basic analysis

Examples of high-stakes decisions to protect:

• Strategic direction and vision

• Key hires and culture-defining choices

• Major resource allocation

• Crisis response

Bottom Line

Every decision you make draws from a single, limited mental reservoir.

When you waste that capacity on low-leverage choices, you sabotage your ability to make the high-stakes decisions that actually move the needle.

The most successful people don't rely on willpower, they build better systems for protecting their decision-making capacity. And you can build them too.

That's it for Part 1. Over the next two weeks, I'll break down exactly how to eliminate micro decisions and make better decisions that actually move the needle.

In Part 2, I'll show you exactly how to eliminate micro decisions and build tactical systems that free your mental bandwidth.

And Part 3 is for making better decisions when faced with the important choices that help shape your life trajectory. I'll share frameworks from top performers on how to structure and make high-stakes decisions.

Until then,

David Lobo

Head of Growth, Workmate

P.S. What decision has had the biggest impact on your life or business so far? Reply to this email, I will read every response.

P.P.S. Want to eliminate the mental overhead of scheduling? Workmate's AI Executive Assistant handles your meetings, protects your calendar, and gives you back hours of decision-making bandwidth. Join the waitlist today.